Zetterberg will be watching when his Detroit Red Wings renew acquaintances with Chara and his Bruins in Game 1 of the first-round series Friday, still sidelined from back surgery. Zetterberg skated with fellow injured teammates Daniel Cleary and Mikael Samuelsson Tuesday, the third day that Zetterberg has skated, but he opted against a planned practice, postponing it till Thursday.

"Up till now, everything went well," Zetterberg said. "Each phase of my rehab has been good. On Thursday, I'll skate a little bit with the team and see what progress there. So far, the back feels good."

Zetterberg reiterated what has been said since he had surgery on Feb. 21: He isn't likely to play again unless there is a second round for the Red Wings.

"We were shooting for round two, and that's still the plan," he said.

The Red Wings had the same lines in practice as last week, with Pavel Datsyuk centering Justin Abdelkader and Johan Franzen, Riley Sheahan centering Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist, Darren Helm centering Tomas Jurco and Daniel Alfredsson, and Luke Glendening with Drew Miller and David Legwand.

The speed that the Red Wings have on every line is part of why Zetterberg has confidence that they can beat a team as good as Boston.

"It's a good team," he said. "They have really good depth, good goaltending, but it's been good games when we've played them during the regular season. We have to play well and we have to play structured and we have to have good defense. If we have that, and good special teams, we can do some damage."